The Best Deceptions
by Marianne Bennet
Summary: "A little dumb but cute," Kaliyo had said, tone scornful, "You should go for him." That was just of the facets that Kaliyo Djannis did not understand about Inperial Intelligence.So what was Cipher Nine doing in a bar with Sanju Pyne? Character Sketch


**The Best Deceptions**  
><em>A Star Wars: The Old Republic Fan Fiction by Marianne Bennet<em>

A/N: Spoilers for Imperial Agent storyline on Hutta, Dromund Kaas, Nar Shaddaa, and Balmorra. Story manifested itself as a plot bunny in my head a few nights ago. It's more of a very rough character sketch than an actual short story. Enjoy!

**… … … … …**

"Tell me about Dromund Kaas."

"What's there to say?" said Cipher Nine as they walked out of the storefront. "It rained every day and the parties were all about Sith politics. What's there to say?"

"Tell me something exciting," Sanju tried again when they paused to allow a battalion of Imperial soldiers to pass.

"Do you want me to make something up?"

For a moment, she was worried that he might say yes. But he had taken her hand as they left the nondescript Intelligence outpost and she was more worried about that. It was a sweet gesture and one that she could have appreciated more under other circumstances. But it left her thinking and worrying about so many things: Was her hand cold? His palm felt hot against hers. Did the silver ring with the blue stones on her right index finger pinch against his? The brilliant strategic mind that made the cipher agent an asset when undercover was soon proving a liability when she was herself.

"Why do you want to know so much about it?" she asked before he could answer.

"Maybe I'm looking for a job recommendation," he said in response. "Maybe I just like you," he added with a smile that made her feel warm from head to toe.

The bartender at the only cantina in Sobrik knew her but that couldn't be helped. He knew that she had shot one of his frequent patrons, the Republic spy; she could see it in the way the heavyset man's hands shook when he deposited their drinks and then fled into the backroom. Sanju didn't notice anything out of order; his eyes were on her face as she lifted the imported Tarisian ale to her lips. "_A little dumb but cute,_" Kaliyo had described the double agent, eyebrow cocked, tone scornful. "_You should go for him._" That was just of the many facets that Kaliyo Djannis did not understand about Imperial Intelligence, that Cipher Nine did not expect the Rattaki to understand: romance was forbidden unless it met the purpose of the assignment. Real emotional entanglements of any sort were discouraged. So what was Cipher Nine doing in a bar with Sanju Pyne?

As if reading her mind, Sanju set down his cup and asked, "You're not going to get in trouble or anything for this? You're off-hours, right?"

_There is no such thing as 'off-hours.' As a double agent, you should know that by now. If you're going to be manipulating this terror cell, you had better realize that fast. _She could have told him that. It might have done him some good. But she didn't. She smiled at him carelessly -not carelessly; not carelessly at all but instead with the carefully measured balance of a good-natured attitude and flirtatious recklessness that would imply her willingness to be careless -and replied, "At this point, I think Keeper needs me far too much to cite me on something like fraternization."

He laughed; she had meant for him to laugh. "And I suppose that if you told me why that is, you'd have to kill me."

_I'd feel bad about it. _Instead, she shrugged. "You know how this job is."

"Don't remind me. You'll make me want to get drunk and then I'll really be a liability. What about you?"

"I could be persuaded into a little drunken… anything."

"Wouldn't need to persuade me… much," said Sanju in response. "But you make it sound like you don't enjoy your line of work."

"You mean getting paid to lie, cheat, and blackmail people?" She considered this as she sipped her drink, felt the alcohol begin its siege on her systems. "There are worse jobs. And, while I suppose it might get dull eventually, I'm having fun."

"But nothing ever lasts," he replied, finishing his first drink and waving for a second. "I mean, think about it: you go out into the field, get a new identity or, in my case, keep yours but keep your affiliations quiet. You meet people and you make relationships, friendships even, but you know nothing is going to last. You'll get shipped out of there in… three months? Six?

She shrugged. "The best deceptions aren't made to last. Sometimes covers can last decades but it's typically impractical."

"But still: I was with Chemish and her people for almost two years…" Suddenly, he stopped and looked around. "We probably shouldn't be talking about this here."

"Probably not," she agreed. "But what do we talk about then?"

"Should we pretend to be normal?" He cracked a smile that looked more bitter than happy.

She thought about the lock-picks and slicer kit in her belt, the gun at her side,the grenades in her pack, the knives in her boots. Sanju probably carried the same tools or maybe he didn't. Either way: "But we're not normal."

Sanju winced as the bartender deposited a second pair of drinks. "Do you ever get to be normal?" he asked her and for the first time she realized how _tired_ he looked: the unkempt hair, the shadows under his dark eyes. He looked older than his dossier suggested. "I know that sounds stupid but you've been at this longer than I have. You must have been."

"And what makes you say that?" she chose to ask instead as she took another sip from her glass.

"Because you're good at it," was his answer. "Hell, you saw me struggling enough with Chemish back there. First day we met, I had a hard time coming up with your introduction, of all of the basic things I should've been able to do. And then you step in and completely take control. Chemish didn't know what the hell to do with you and…" He paused. "And neither did I, to tell the truth."

"It'll become second nature soon enough; trust me," she said, deliberately neglecting to mention that she must have still been in training at the time he had first entered the terror cell.

"But what's it like?" he wanted to know. "Do you get to have friends, downtime, a relationship?"

"And do you want all of those things?" she asked, provoking.

He didn't flinch. "Maybe," he said honestly and she liked him better for it. "What about you? Have you ever managed to have a relationship in the field or anywhere for that matter?"

"Truth?" she asked. He nodded. She wondered if he would regret it as she recalled Nem'ro's palace.

_The Blade's former accomplice wanted two things from her and she wasn't going to give either to him. If she gave him the money, Keeper wouldn't be pleased. If she even allowed herself to consider the other, she wouldn't be able to look at herself in a mirror for a long time. But the scum was going to try and force her so she acted first. She shoved Dheno Ray against the wall outside of Nem'ro's antechamber, covered his mouth with hers. His fingers grappled with the waistband of her trousers; her hands wrapped around his neck. He jammed his tongue against her teeth; she maneuvered her fingers to get a better hold on his throat . One of his hands slipped up her shirt; she pushed his face away from hers and used the momentum to snap his neck. She buried her almost lover under a couple of mops and waste-bins, shut the cleaning closet door, and went on her way to begin subverting one of the Hutt's lieutenants._

"It's better if I don't answer that," she said quickly. Let him make of it what he would; that was a story she didn't want to tell anyone. "But if you're asking what you're supposed to do when you like -care about even -someone that you're lying to for the sake of the Empire, the stories get even less pretty."

"Tell me about it," he invited her again and she said, "I don't want to get into the details. There was someone I was working with; he didn't know who I was with. He was a good guy. He liked me, wanted me to meet his sons. I wasn't supposed to kill him but then something happened."

"And you ended up killing him," he supplied, his voice understanding, sympathetic.

She gave him a long look and then looked up at the security camera above the bar. As if looking directly into Keeper's or rather Watcher Two's eyes, as the case may be, she said, "I did."

Sanju nodded; even with his spoken doubts, he understood the concept of sacrifice. She tore her eyes away from the camera in the corner, turned to him, and said, "Let's get out of here."

When they were outside again and in the open space between buildings where there was less chance of an eavesdropper, she turned back to him and said, "This job messes people up."

"Maybe I should consider a career change."

"They'll never let you go," she answered. "That's the one thing that does last. Once you know enough, you'll never have to go job hunting."

That made him laugh; she hadn't meant for that. She didn't laugh and he saw that. Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face him. "But think about it," he said. "Look at everything you've done here. You saved people by frying those bombs; you saved a lot of people doing everything you did. Intelligence hasn't gotten you yet."

_"Cute but dumb," _Kaliyo had said.

"Maybe," she said to Sanju in return, "but how long before they do?

**… … … … …**

"Did you grow up here?"

"More or less." He leaned his elbows against the railing of the spaceport roof, careful to keep his face out of the wind's path. Balmorra smelled like smoke no matter where you were; even the cantina had the scent clinging to upholstery and patrons' clothing. But there was no reason to go deliberately asking for a face full of ash. Beside him, she gazed down at the landscape beyond Sobrik's walls as he spoke. Her high clearance got her into the places with the best and the worst views in the galaxy.

"Well, which is it: more or less?" He didn't answer that so she tried again. "If you were born here, how did you end up working against the rebels?"

"I wasn't born here." She waited for him to explain that but he didn't. "The factories aren't the only things worth fighting for on Balmorra," he said, turning a hard gaze on her. "There are people here too; people that have been loyal to the Empire all of their lives. The Empire has refugees too; where were they supposed to go when their homes were torn apart before the treaty?"

"You're saying you were a refugee." It wasn't a question; questions that she already knew the answers to were useful in their proper place but not on a rooftop where the air was free even if it did smell like war.

"You could say that." He caught her gaze, smiled crookedly, and jerked his head in the direction of the view. "The Balmorran countryside can't look like much to someone like you."

"Someone like me?" she repeated as the wind whipped strands of blond hair around her face. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dromund Kaas isn't exactly a war zone from what I've heard."

"What makes you think I'm from the capital?"

"Well then," he thought she was teasing him. She could see it in the sideways way he looked at her. "Where are you from?"

"I'm from wherever I need to be from." He was disappointed with that answer; she could see that too. There wasn't much that she couldn't see save when it came to herself. She asked again: "Truth?" He shrugged; maybe he didn't expect the truth from her, only sideways answers and nonchalant shrugs Determined to prove him wrong, she said, "I was born on Korriban."

"Korriban?" She had caught him by surprise. "You're not a-"

"No," she said and was pleased to see his sigh of relief. "No, they wouldn't waste a Sith on Imperial Intelligence. My mother is the Sith; I'm my father's daughter even if he wanted the gift of Force-sensitivity for me all the same. I spent a long time on Korriban; my parents wanted to see if I had the signs, which I didn't. I had other talents like lying and I'm repurposed for Intelligence. The sun is going down."

"Do you have to go?" he asked.

"I wish I didn't," was her response. She studied his face for a moment and then shook her head. "You have so much work ahead of you. Your life would have been so much easier if you had just let me kill Gray Star, you know that?"

"Don't worry about me," he said. "Worry about yourself. I don't know what kind of mission you're on but if it's enough to make you worried, I'm not sure I even want to know about it. I wish we were normal. I wish we could have gone out and had drinks without being spied on and I could have asked for your HoloNet frequency and I could call you and we could meet up sometime in the future."

"Maybe I'll come back," she said, "when everything else is done."

"You won't want to come back here."

"Maybe," she told him, "but maybe some things are worth coming back for."

**… … … … …**

Kaliyo was leaning against the bulkhead when the hiss of the airlock was heard and Cipher Nine entered the ship. "So," the shorter, more slender woman asked, "how'd the date go?"

"It wasn't a date," said the agent, blue eyes flashing in almost-suppressed annoyance. "It was a..." She bit her lower lip, thinking. "It was a distraction."

"Was it a fun distraction?"

Kaliyo had followed her into the main room. The agent figured that she wouldn't be able to shake her until the Rattaki heard something interesting. "You want to know if I had sex with him?"

"If you're up for sharing…"

"I don't feel like sharing."

"On a scale of one to ten…"

"Kaliyo!" Cipher Nine descended into a chair, slapped her palm down on her thigh in exasperation. "What do you want to hear? I didn't sleep with him. I ended up telling him all kinds of shit about myself, the sort of thing that I don't even whisper in the dead of night, and I still felt like I was lying. Is that what you wanted to know?"

"Well, gee, agent. Isn't that a little personal?" She smirked. "Sanju seemed like a sweet guy. He probably felt all honored that you'd trust him with fun facts about the elusive Cipher Nine."

"He probably thinks I'm out of my mind."

"The best people are." Kaliyo sat down too, propped her slender feet up on the seat next to her fellow agent. "The ones worth knowing anyway. I wouldn't figure you to get so strung out about a guy."

"I'm not strung out." She felt her gaze slide away, become unfocused; she was almost staring into space. "I'm tired. I've barely started and I'm already tired."

"How is this any different than that corporate pig back on Nar Shaddaa?" Kaliyo wanted to know. "It can't be that Sanju is just that much better looking."

"That was part of the job, Kaliyo. This was…" she hesitated. "This was different."

"You mean you weren't spreading your legs for the sake of the Empire…"

"Kaliyo!" The cipher agent glared at her coworker with a gaze as barbed as the razor sharp knives at her belt. "Too much."

"Well, sorry," replied Kaliyo in a tone that was anything but. "Did you restock the beer on this ship?"

"You want it, go out and buy it yourself."

"Fine. Why don't you go see what little Miss Prissy Pants at HQ wants on the holocomm.?"

"Watcher Two," she corrected through clenched teeth but Kaliyo was already gone and the ship was quiet. Comforted by the quiet, she leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths. It had felt good –maybe not good but –okay, telling someone something, someone who seemed decent, someone that couldn't be altogether counted upon to use information against her. Someone that was in a similar boat, someone that had just been thrown headfirst into a deep and dangerous situation by circumstance and was expected to swim effortlessly. They were in similar situations, she and Sanju; she could see that now that the dust had cleared. It was a shame that they didn't have more time; that they couldn't speak freely, that she couldn't stay and he couldn't come with her.

Yes, it was a shame but they couldn't.


End file.
